By Dilip Cherian
For a service that has perfected the art of surviving governments, political regimes, and the occasional scandal, compulsory retirement is about as welcome as an adverse ACR. So, Gujarat’s decision to retire two IAS officers early is worth noticing.
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Gaurav Dahiya, a 2010-batch officer, and K Rajesh, a 2011-batch officer, have been compulsorily retired with effect from October 1 following a review of their service records. Rajesh had been under suspension since 2022 amid CBI and ED proceedings relating to alleged bribery and misuse of office. Dahiya had also faced disciplinary proceedings and suspension.
The law has never been short of provisions to move out officers who are considered unsuitable for continued service. What has usually been in short supply is the appetite to use them.
The numbers bear this out. Between July 2014 and January 2020, premature-retirement provisions were invoked against 163 Group A officers, including All India Services officers. Another 122 officers were retired under similar provisions between 2020 and 2023. These are not IAS-only figures, but they illustrate the point: thousands may be reviewed; very few are actually shown the door.
That makes Gujarat’s move interesting. It reinforces a rather obvious principle that security of tenure is not immunity from consequences.
But there is a catch. Premature retirement cannot become a convenient substitute for disciplinary proceedings, nor can it acquire the reputation of being a handy administrative broom. The process has to be fair, documented and defensible.
Otherwise, “Operation Gangajal” could end up being remembered less as a clean-up than as another weary slogan.
Fault line in Bengal
It may be little more than a rumour for now, but it points to a potentially awkward fault line in West Bengal’s new administrative order. There is no independent evidence yet of a substantive dispute between Chief Minister’s Adviser Subrata Gupta and Chief Secretary Manoj Agarwal. What is verifiable, however, is that the ingredients for a parallel power centre exist.
Gupta and Agarwal are both 1990-batch West Bengal cadre officers. Gupta, now retired, was appointed Adviser to Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari on May 9, days after completing his assignment as the Election Commission’s Special Roll Observer. Two days later, Agarwal, then Bengal’s Chief Electoral Officer, was appointed Chief Secretary.
The issue, according to sources, is not personality but institutional clarity.
The Chief Secretary has a clearly defined role as the senior-most administrative link between the government and its departments. Gupta’s appointment, by contrast, does not publicly spell out a narrowly defined portfolio.
There is nothing unusual about a Chief Minister relying on an experienced adviser. Gupta’s long administrative career and recent election role give him considerable institutional heft. But when a retired officer of his seniority has direct access to the CM while a serving Chief Secretary runs the administration, overlapping authority can quickly become a governance problem.
For now, there is no evidence of open warfare. Indeed, Agarwal recently issued an order constituting a state-level panel that includes Gupta. So, the real question is not whether the two men disagree. Senior babus inevitably do. It is who ultimately speaks for the Chief Minister and whose word the babus follow, which can become an administrative test.
Looking beyond the IFS
The view in the Ministry of External Affairs these days seems to indicate that political appointees make “better” diplomats and may be better equipped to deal with political problems that career diplomacy cannot solve on its own.
Bangladesh is the obvious case. Relations hit a low during the interim government under Muhammad Yunus. The return of the BNP under Tarique Rahman has created an opening for a reset, and both sides are now signalling a desire to move beyond the strains of the past two years.
Dinesh Trivedi, a veteran politician and former Union minister, as India’s High Commissioner to Dhaka, has brought something an IFS officer cannot necessarily bring to the table: political currency. He can speak to political leaders not merely as a diplomat representing a government, but as someone who understands the rough-and-tumble of politics himself.
Following Trivedi’s appointment, the buzz in babu corridors is that Delhi is now reportedly considering political figures for other sensitive neighbourhood postings, including Nepal and Sri Lanka.
The logic is not difficult to understand. Career diplomats know the rules, the history and the institutional channels. Political appointees may have easier access to the people who actually make or derail political decisions. In a neighbourhood where domestic politics and bilateral relations are often inseparable, that access can matter.
But there is an obvious institutional trade-off. IFS officers spend decades building regional expertise, networks and diplomatic judgement. If political access starts determining the most coveted postings, some within the service may reasonably wonder whether professional experience is being valued less than political proximity.
Delhi may not be choosing between politicians and diplomats. It may simply be adding another instrument to its diplomatic arsenal.
Whether that remains an occasional strategic choice or becomes the new route to the neighborhood’s plum posts remains to be seen.
